I'm about to set up an i5-2400 PC and looking at using the ASRock H61M/U3S3, which is about half the price of a H67 board for me, and seems to have all the features. By virtue of the H61 chipset though, the SATA3 controller is an external chip. I'm wondering are there likely to be any drawbacks on this board from a power use/noise point of view compared to the more expensive H67 boards?

eg, CPU voltage control, Fan control, idle power use of the H61 vs H67, power draw of extra sata3 chip etc. Anyone with any stats on power consumption of this board?

[...]H67 board for me, and seems to have all the features. By virtue of the H61 chipset though, the SATA3 controller is an external chip. I'm wondering are there likely to be any drawbacks on this board from a power use/noise point of view compared to the more expensive H67 boards?

The Marvell web site claims that all their 6Gb/s SATA controllers use 1 watt. That means they will not need cooling or draw a lot of power.

The H67 chipset has 5 differences from the H61: Intel RAID, 2 SATA 6Gbps ports, 4 more USB2 ports, 2 more PCIe lanes, support for four dual-sided memory sticks. I can not imagine that the H67 uses much more power then the H61, but it is possible.

I expect that the efficiency of your power supply will have more impact on your system then the use these SATA controller and platform controller chips.

Thanks for the input. I've ordered the H61 board to give it a go. That was a good tip about the G series pentiums too. It's a bit late for me though, as I've already ordered the i5, but looking at it now, the cheaper ones do look a good option.

Interesting looking in that article how the idle power in AMD vs Intel tells a different story to what previous SPCR tests have done

It's a bit late for me though, as I've already ordered the i5, but looking at it now, the cheaper ones do look a good option.

As you have not had a motherboard, you may not have opened the box of your i5. Many retailer will take back an UNOPENED Intel retail CPU. Alternately, you could sell the i5 on Ebay, where unopened retail CPUs often sell for more then they would at Newegg. Newegg does not take back CPUs unless they are broken.

johno wrote:

Interesting looking in that article how the idle power in AMD vs Intel tells a different story to what previous SPCR tests have done [...] I guess the motherboard can make a big difference and it's so hard to make fair comparisons.

Yes, the difference in board powers can be significant. Overclocking boards can us a lot more power, due to the huge power supplies that they use. While normal boards never expect to deliver more then 95 watts (or 130 watts for extreme edition CPUs), overclocking boards must expect that they will be asked to deliver 160 watts to the CPU. Extra power circuits use a little power, even when turned off.

The H61 boards are not for overclocking, and do not support extreme edition CPUS. They should use less power.

Chips like the Marvell controllers each use a watt or two. If your fancy Motherboard has 8 USB3 ports, that could make it draw another 4 watts at idle (1 watt per chip, 2 ports per chip). Add Firewire and an extra onboard NIC, and the overclocking full-featured board can draw another 15 watts all the time.

I searched and found/bumped this old thread because I'm considering the ASRock H61M-U3S3 for a budget build with a Sandy Bridge Pentium or i3. And I just wanted clarification on the H61 chipset limitation on RAM. Does this board support double-sided RAM? The board only has 2 slots so I assume it's ok since my understanding is that it is only when you try to add more than two RAM sticks (on boards that have 4 RAM slots) that you are restricted to single-sided RAM. Is that correct?

1. It is not allowed to install a DDR or DDR2 memory module intoDDR3 slot;otherwise, this motherboard and DIMM may bedamaged.2. If you install only one memory module or two non-identicalmemory modules, it is unable to activate the Dual ChannelMemory Technology.3. Some DDR3 1GB double-sided DIMMs with 16 chips may notwork on this motherboard. It is not recommended to install themon this motherboard.

So you're saying any 16 chip DIMM may be incompatible? I really thought when they said specifically "1G" modules they meant it.The board supports 16GB, so how is one supposed to install 16GB using only single-sided RAM sticks? Is there such a thing as a 8GB stick with all the chips on one side?

If your retailer has a good return policy, you could experiment yourself.

Thanks for that link. Appears that many of the tested modules are double-sided.Appears there are 3 tested 8GB modules on that memory support list, one of which is a Kingston KVR1333D3N9H/8G for which the spec sheet says:

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